RPS Asks: What Will You Play This Weekend?

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Hello. I hope you are having a lovely day. I wanted to ask you something. Now that the Skyrim frenzy seems to be dying off, and your gaming digestive system is bloated with games hoovered up from a run of excellent indie bundles, what will you be playing this weekend? How many of you are going back to things you bought before the Skyrim addiction set in? And how many of you are now faced with a stack of indie games that each demand your attentions? Perhaps you’ve finally realised how wrong you are about the Stalker games and have finally got around to playing them, eh? What shall it be? Speak!

Me? I shall be playing a bit of Starfarer, a bit of Perpetuum, and a smidgeon of Trine 2, just to balance out all those lasers.

I will most probably be playing World of Warcraft and trying to fight off the temptation to buy/play Star Wars: The Old Republic. haha. I will most likely play League of Legends with friends, Co-op Lara Craft and the Guardian of Light (which is very good by the way) and possibly finish Trine 2! #weekendnotlongenough!

@frightlever: Yeah same here, the £40 (£45?) price tag is pretty steep even if you get the first month free (I assume and hope.). I’m not as worried about EA as Bioware seem pretty intent on doing good by players. Playing this is inevitable for me. Problem with WoW for me is that I have done everything there is to do, all I play for is the resets each week which occupy about 3 days of the week for me max and I do those during the week leaving nothing for the weekend, I guess that’s my fault though.

I picked up Lara Craft and the Guardian of Light in the sale this time last year, but didn’t play it till a few months after, really enjoyed it, but couldn’t find anyone else playing the multiplayer. I wonder if the community has picked up a bit more now

Price in Europe is 39.99 and I am playing it for a week right now. So for me it’s SWTOR this weekend. The game will hopefully keep you from buying other games, so in the end pricing is not much of a blocking issue.

@Scatterbrainpaul I couldn’t really tell you to be honest, I’ve been playing with one of my friends who got it in the sale you are referring to, I tried to get it during that sale but my payments wouldn’t go through some reason. The Co-op worked perfectly for us, he just created a game and invited me to it through steam invite which I accepted and we jumped into the game. There were however some issues such as your typical props not being in the same place which isn’t an issue really and spikes not appearing for me that are essential to doing a puzzle.

Don’t buy SWTOR over Origin, it is way cheaper in retail stores. And even cheaper at onlinekeystore.com, where i got my key. (Altough my first key didn’t work and i had to contact support to get a new one…)

Anyways, playing 16hours of SWTOR this weekend and yes, i feel ashamed.

Surely it’s available for less than £40 by now? I have a copy to be returned to Amazon which, thanks to excessively early ordering, cost me a lot less than that. Wondering now if I shouldn’t sell it somewhere instead and let someone who wants to play it share some of the benefit of that saving.

Hopefully you will not suffer from the same vicissitudes I had with AC: game won’t launch – and what appears to be a Securom-related trouble to add insult to injury, all my external Hard drives disappeared after installation. Thank god for good old system restore.

Battlefield 3 for me and some L4D2 as I picked it up for me and my boy in the steam sales as I only played it on a tvbox so far (L4D2 that is BF3 isnt on the tvboxes just some shoddy spoof made by an EA marketing demon)

A friend bought B3 on Xbox for my birthday, so I am doing the right thing and playing with him for a bit then jumping over to the PC version when my graphics card gets an update.

On my 28″ CRT TV you can hardly make anything out it’s nearly unplayable for me. But me and the lady are investing in a projector soon, so will have it rigged up to that for some 12 foot diameter gaming goodness.

Skyrim on a projector is unreal especially if you have some surround sound as well.

The lighting ( as in night time lighting ) MOD is more; you either like it or not I think. It can wash out some whites in bright daylight but I like the effect to be honest. In the dungeons it means that using a torch actually makes a difference. And seeing just the blue eyes of Draugers coming at you is quite cool.

I’ll also play X-COM. I find that I don’t enjoy the squad based combat as my guys are practically fit enough to storm whatever the aliens can throw at us right now, being decked with power suits and having heavy blasters equipped by 100% – it almost feels like I am commanding Space Marines. Of course, that also means that the interface is far too slow for me. x(

I’ll also try out Galactic Civilizations II again, but I doubt anyone here knows what it is.

I’m currently due to complete it on Monday, so tomorrow I’ll be playing the moving house minigame. I’m hoping that they don’t throw any last minute twists in there.

Seriously though, good luck. It’s not fun I know, and gets really demoralising after a while. Oddly I found I actually faired better with my more ‘optimistic’ applications, possibly because I wasn’t swamped under thousands or other applicants.

Thank you for your kind words, and the same to you. It’s a pretty shitty situation…I can’t seem to get into jobs that I am actually trained for, not enough ‘experience’ (ugh) and simple administrative jobs won’t hire me because I’m overqualified. All that’s left is to the absolute lowest rung of work. And given some past experiences, I’m not sure that’s not even worth the extra 100 € I may get from that. Meh. I’m thinking of emigrating and doing shitty work abroad, at least it’ll be something new.

Back on Panzer Corps, a really absorbing game, though I’ve still only scratched the surface as I restarted at a higher difficulty (the beginner level was too easy even for me). I also went back to The Witcher in an attempt to finish it, now on the final chapter.

I’ve recently dusted off my old Box of X after not having used it in more than 6 months and will spend the weekend with Rayman Origins and Darksouls. If I play anything on my PC this weekend, it will probably be the Fortune Summoner demo.

For what it’s worth, my PC continues (exclusively) to be a Skyrim delivery system. I’ve barely sniffed anything else since it came out (220 hours in) and I’m still on my first character. I’m level 41 – anybody know what the level cap is?

As a special note here: I will include only mods which will compliment the vanilla game for now. Nothing that will ruin the vanilla feel, just enhance it. Fair warning, though, the game is not overly challenging the first time out. You will find rare items at vendors, etc. Something myself and many other modders will doubtless take care of as soon as we get the tool set. But below are a list of vanilla-friendly, game-play and visually enhancing mods. Nothing to ruin the original feel.
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These mods will let you play through a visually more appealing game, with a more organized favorites list, while preserving the vanilla feel, so when the tool set does emerge you can know what you wish to mod out/into the game.
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Sounds of Nature: water – link to skyrimnexus.com. New, immersive sounds for all running water in game. Includes waterfall sounds and is a nice change from vanilla. This is best with Immersive/Realistic Water from the Nexus, but I leave those to taste.
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Dragon Retex Pack: link to skyrimnexus.com. Improved textures for all Dragons, except Alduin, without cartoon recolor. Very nice addition to your game, if your PC can run it.
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Categorized Favorites Menu: link to skyrimnexus.com. This mod is the reason I play the game, now. The favorites menu becomes so crowded, and shouts and weapons so hard to find, that I had given up playing out of sheer frustration. Because of this mod I played 10 hours yesterday, through a head cold, after not playing the entire Holiday break. Might not work with other UI mods, though, not sure.
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Odahviin Rexture Project: link to skyrimnexus.com. Retextures a certain dragon in the game. Recommend you choose either Pearl Grey or the White retex for reasons that become obvious later. But feel free to pick another.
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Alduin as Shadow Dragon: link to skyrimnexus.com. Makes the World Eater look the part. Very nice retex of the big baddie. Recommend this.
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Glowing Ore Veins: link to skyrimnexus.com. Sacrifices a small amount of realism for the sake of being able to see and more importantly recognize the ore veins in the game from further away than 6 inches. Worth the time if you want to craft armor.
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Quality World Map with Roads: link to skyrimnexus.com. Now there are roads on your map. The things you walk down. Which appear on most maps. And the option of an old world paper map, too if you want it. Highly recommended, but there are other map mods too.
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Animal Pack: link to skyrimnexus.com. Retextures most animals, for now. Author has plans to add variety of colors to the game once Creation Kit emerges. Choice of colors for each animal included. Highly recommended.
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All Black DB Armor: link to skyrimnexus.com. Because the Red/Black “Superhero Costume” the DB uses in the vanilla game is simply comical. Get this and a high res Nightingale retex too.

I was also late to the party and have been playing Skyrim almost non-stop – I installed an absolute ton of mods before I even started though – the aforementioned flora pack, better water, better night sky, QD inventory, Better Sorting (essential), a Quality World Map (also essential), Glowing Ore Veins, Ambient Seagulls… the list goes on. Basically, anything you don’t like, you can change!
I highly reccommend Nexus Mod Manager for this, easiest thing in the world to change your mods on the fly. Just remember what you change in case there’s anything that stops you loading saves. Hasn’t happened to me yet, fingers crossed, but it can happen you know.

Skyrim is a good game. The mods make it great. The one I cannot live without now is the “Categorized Favorites.” It is, quite literally, the reason I am playing the game again. That ridiculous favorites list had grown so crowded in my game that I could no longer stand to even play. Combat was slogging through a list more than fighting.
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Then this mod saved me from all that.

Original Trine – Got it for 99 pennies on Steam. It was put on sale for $0.99 for about 60 seconds before they corrected the price. I nailed it down during that error and actually got it for that price. I should feel guilty, because its worth well more than that.
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Also finishing up the Civil War quest on Skyrim. Such a slacker. Just now hit 90hrs and defeated Alduin (the first time.)
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Hunted: The Demon’s Forge. $9.99 Holiday sale. Single player though, since co-op is a broken mess.
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Also, some LOTR: WITN and Saint’s Row the Third. Girlfriend cannot get enough of co-op in Saints Row. She loves that game and once we get going, its liable to be a late night of blowing shit up, stealing military aircraft via remote control and parachute and good old open world mayhem. And we owe it to RPS for their excellent review of Saint’s Row, and Green Man Gaming for their $20 discount code Christmas sale of Saints Row the Third (which really needs an SRTT, LOTR style acronym.)
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So many good games, so little time.

Probably some Silent Hunter 4. I’m currently playing as a sneaky U-Boot captain who, on his first voyage in the Pacific, managed to destroy the HMS Howe, a 35000 ton British Battleship, the USS Enterprise and the USS Yorktown, both 20000 ton Fleet carriers in the harbour of Fremantle, Australia.

It’s a bit awkward actually, ages ago I had invited some friends over for dinner in Skyrim. I live in Breezehome of Whiterun but since inviting them I proceeded to lead a stormcloak attack to gain control of Whiterun. I’m probably being silly but I feel bad showing my face around there like nothing actually happened.

Skyrim is on hold for a while, because it’s reached a point where the combat mechanics have become boring and I’m on autopilot half the time. I need some time away, so I can return later and just finish up the plot lines I’m interested in.

So it’s back to strategy games this weekend. I’ll probably try the Rise of the Samurai DLC for Shogun 2 that I picked up during the Steam sale, along with the Blood Pack DLC for appropriate Kurosawa-esque arterial spray.

I know the feeling here. Something needs to happen in Skyrim to keep combat interesting throughout the entirety of the game. Once you receive high level armor you do go on autopilot. Puzzling over how to fix this for some time now; hopefully, i can come up with something by the time the Creation Kit is released.

Not sure yet. I’ll peruse my catalogue of installed Steam games when I get home. Still haven’t played Sword of the Stars II so maybe that, but if not most likely back to Skyrim. Haven’t played it since before the holidays and although I’m not shaking from withdrawals I feel something tugging at me to go and finish some things.

Total War Shogun 2 – A friend bought it through the Christmas steamsale, and I’m having a blast with the co-op campaign (in Rise of the Samurai, but we’ll likely do a regular one once we’re done). Can’t wait for Fall of the Samurai.

Napoleon Total War – So much more polished than Empire, even if it is somewhat less expansive. Jumped back in due to nostalgia while playing shogun, having fun with a prussian world domination campaign.

Sins of a Solar Empire – Or at least that’s the plan – a few friends and I are going to play some multiplayer (if we can hopefully find the time).

I’m underground. In the dark. Bleeding. Low on ammo and bandages, stuck between some lethal anomaly and something…something else that will kill me if I get too close. And it’s your fault, Mr Rossignol. I hope you’re proud.

Also been playing Alpha Centauri again, just cos. It still stand up well.

SWTOR for the most part, I’d imagine. I’m woefully underlevelled compared to most of my mates at the moment, but the Mrs has a shedload of catching up to do this weekend work-wise, so in the next 48 hours, I intend to crush many Rebel scum.

That and some BF3 thrown in for good measure. And the odd LoL game too.

I bought so many games in the steam sale that I can’t wait to try out. SPAZ sounds amazing, my first 3 hours in Blur were exactly what I wanted from a racing game, I got into the whole Skyrim thing way too late, so I’m only now getting hooked–so yeah, I’m probably just going to be playing League of Legends all weekend again, because I have so many friends who want to play it with me. I’ll just trick myself into believing that it’s homework for casting IEM Kiev later this month.

I’ll likely be playing a lot of Persuade the Newborn Baby That The Reason He’s Upset Is Because He Needs To Sleep, which seems to be a favourite game of his.

If this leaves me any scraps of time I will try to squeeze in any of the following, as my whims take me: Bastion, SpaceChem, Sequence, Binding of Isaac or maybe some Serious Sam (the first one). I’d like to take my Orks out for some Dawn of War 2 multiplayer, but it is highly unlikely I will feel able to commit the time.